But to make up for those somewhat dismal stats, after graduation I worked full time for a year and a half at a particle physics lab on detector characterization for the ATLAS upgrade. Then I was sent to the National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Italy for a month to help them set up a data acquisition system similar to the one I had worked on. Have several publications (one of them my senior thesis work on using high energy protons to image tumors) and some of those nifty poster presentation things.
And I sent brownies in with my applications! ok, not really, but I was thinking about it...

i don't know. Why would the average GPA for the program be 2.5? It doesn't make sense. I imagine, if that is the case then that means the grades aren't inflated at all. Even so, it seems quite low. U of T has the reputation of being the best school in Canada (well, along with McGill) and one of the best in the world. That demonstrates poor teaching if you average student is getting a C+... even if the grades are uninflated. I would expect more from U of T.

i don't know. Why would the average GPA for the program be 2.5? It doesn't make sense. I imagine, if that is the case then that means the grades aren't inflated at all. Even so, it seems quite low. U of T has the reputation of being the best school in Canada (well, along with McGill) and one of the best in the world. That demonstrates poor teaching if you average student is getting a C+... even if the grades are uninflated. I would expect more from U of T.

I think this is my first post. I always felt that I was an outsider due to my wanting to go to graduate school in medical physics rather than physics. But I guess I'm not the only one. So here is my stat.

That's nice. But when you present a 3.5 GPA despite being in the top 25% of the class in the top physics school in the country, you're going to have a tough time convincing graduate schools that you're not a stupid slacker.

I think this is my first post. I always felt that I was an outsider due to my wanting to go to graduate school in medical physics rather than physics. But I guess I'm not the only one. So here is my stat.

Let me know if you hear from Madison or UChicago. I applied to medical physics at those schools as well. I'm also applying at Purdue.

Also, when did Madison give you any further details on the number of applications? I got their stats from last year saying that got 150 apps, so I presume that this year that got even more???

Your physics GRE score is competitive, do you have any research experience?

That's nice. But when you present a 3.5 GPA despite being in the top 25% of the class in the top physics school in the country, you're going to have a tough time convincing graduate schools that you're not a stupid slacker.

vincente - those average marks do look incredibly low.... clearly there is no mark inflation going on at u of t. You might find it interesting that at my school (McGill) only in one class (physics or math) has the class average been below a B-, and that not since 2nd year has the class average in any class been lower than a B+. Admittedly there is a lot of mark inflation going on... but i get the feeling that this is the norm.

I find the difference between the two schools quite remarkable. Is there an 'Honors' and 'Majors' stream over there too?

Your GPA is still pretty damn good, especially with those average marks... jesus. Good luck fellow Canadian.

About UW, I've personally e-mailed them to see if my application is all completed. The info on my previous post is the result of this email converse with the department. I have also received another e-mail from UW recently. They were asking me if I qualify for certain fellowship. Did you also get that e-mail?

About research, I've done one REU over summer of my Junior year. Since then, I've been working at the Radiology lab as a programmer.

What about you (twistor)? Can you share your stat as well? Just really want to know where I stand. I don't know anybody who's applying to medical physics around me. Some says it's really competitive. Some thinks it's not that competitive. Also, it's not like we have a websource like gradschoolshopper.com. (not sure if this is correct). The only stat I know is from the UW and UCLA. You probably know the stat for UW. UCLA had 18% acceptance rate from past 4 years. However, no mention on GRE/GPA and so on.

1 year research experience in high-energy heavy-ion physics. I've delivered 1 talk at a conference and have a publication on the way (co-author among 3 others). 3 very strong letters (I hope...)

I don't know much about medical physics statistics. 400 Applications will only hurt our chances, unless 398 of those are not very competitive. I have a document from UW saying one of the problems in medical physics is its failure to attract the best and the brightest. So I'm hoping most of those 400 applications were from people with scores/GPAs so low that they don't think they'll qualify from a regular physics program, or from bio-sci students without the hardcore physics background.

International student from Czech Republic (It is in middle Europe for guys who dont know geography well . I received Fulbright Science and Technology award so if I would be admitted the study will be free of charge for me.

Applying to theoretical high energy physics to Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Duke and Rutgers.

Also, I didn't apply to Duke because they have a very low acceptance rate for medical physics. I don't remember exactly, but I calculated their percentage and it was very low. I figured why send them money only to reject me? Application fees are a scam... can you imagine if you had to pay money every time you filled out a job application?

I'm not sure how to interpret these statistics. They say that the # of applicants (118) for 2005 is actually the # of apps received by the graduate school and may NOT reflect the # actually received by the dept. However, I'm pretty sure at UW Med-Phys is its own dept. so these may be pretty accurate. If they're only admitting 17 people to the program I think both of us have reason to be concerned.

Also, the rather large percentage of people earning a masters degree makes me very concerned about their qualifiers...

Twistor, thanks for sharing. I am pretty sure the stat is correct since the medical department is a lone department. Also, 19 people could enrolled when 17 were admitted. The number of students they admit must depend on how much funding is available at that time. If some professors were able to pull off more funding from NHS at later time, I can see it is possible to notify late admission announcement to lucky few. Well, this is all my speculating, of course. Interesting thing to notice is also how UW is able to attack all the students that they admitted. That is pretty impressive. My professor earned his ph.d in med physics from UW and he can never stop bragging about how wonderful UW is.

Looking at your state, I'm now more worried. I guess the statement you heard about medical physics program not being able to attract bright student is obviously false. You are the counter example. And looking at the stat of admission, it is clearly not true. Duke had like less than 10% acceptance rate. UW and UCLA all follows that mark closely. And did you notice, the increase in number of application UW gets every year?

Seriously, I started applying yet more schools after yesterday. I'm going to apply to 3 more physics schools for safety.

I forgot to mention. I had a friend who is now studying ph.d in condense matter at well known institution. He is international student from Japan and had completed his b.s degree from state. He was a very good student. 3.8 gpa with 960 on physics gre. The only low mark I could see from him was his 300 gre verbal score and no significant research experience. He applied UW, UC, and UCLA for medical physics while he was applying to few more physics program. At the end he was admitted to two physics program none medical physics program.

to wooster: According to conditions of Fulbright award, I had to apply to three top universities and two "excellent but less competitive". Anyway, I believe to be submitted to one of the top schools, otherwise I am not sure if I want to leave my country for such a long time.
Yes, the publications are in HEP in effective field theories.

Thank you for the compliment. However, those statistics don't reflect the fact that I actually took the physics GRE twice because I only got a 600-something on the math portion the first time I took it. I actually think you have a great shot at any of those schools because of your experience in radiology.

If you look carefully through the annals of the internet you'll find that Wisconsin medical physics has a policy of not admitting students with a cumulative general GRE of less than 1200 (Math+Verbal). I suspect that was your friends problem. Also, it is very difficult for foreigners to get into US medical physics programs. I can only speculate as to why that is...

I am also applying to medical physics. hchemist, what kind of email did UCLA send you about an interview? Now I'm really worried because I haven't heard anything from them yet! The schools I applied to were UW-Madison, UCLA, Purdue, Duke, UChicago, UT-Houston, and MIT/Harvard.

Hey, you're from UCB? How wonderful. I used to live in SF but now I am at SD.

I've got an phone interview from UCLA. After that they sent me an email of place and time of formal interview. I don't know if this is good or bad. I knew nothing of UCLA interviewing graduate students. I might be at the very edge and maybe they just want to make sure I fit in. So I'm very much scared. I better be prepared for the interview.

Anyway, I don't think you should worry too much about your GRE physics scores. Since most of department now don't require GRE physics.

victory, twistor: Did you guyz apply any other program rather than medical physics? I am about to apply few more graduate program in Physics for back up. How about you guyz?

RG, medical physics is pretty much nuclear physics applied towards radiation therapy and diagnostic imaging. I don't know much more about it than that, so if you want to know more there are many websites where you can read about it.

hchemist, I did not apply to any schools in physics as backup. I figured if I don't get accepted into any medical physics programs, I'll just find work in the mechanical engineering field since that's what I know most about. I really hope this won't be the case! UW-Madison has asked me if I qualify for fellowships and told me to fill out a FAFSA, however, in both emails they said it was not linked in any way to admissions. That's all I've heard so far. Anyway, continue to keep us updated. Good luck!

Because if you get in for physics, you can gradually befriend the medical physicists and hopefully get a good research position.
There are also many different areas within medical physics. The area I've worked on is using silicon detectors in the imaging of tumors (in this case, high energy protons are used instead of x-rays). The detectors I used in this experiment were very similar to the strip detectors that will be used in the ATLAS upgrade...something that is researched within exp particle physics.
of course, it depends what you want to do. Instrumentation might not be your thing.

I received an email from Wisconsin on January 24th telling me I was admitted to their medical physics program and that a subsequent email would be sent with information regarding the optional open house in March. I visited the program in December and spoke with the woman in charge of preparing the applications for review. She told me that January 24th was the first day applications would be reviewed. I haven't heard from any of the other places I applied to (Chicago, Columbia, UPenn, UCLA, Duke), not even an email informing me that they had a record number of applications this year, like some of you got. I visited Chicago as well and they said they probably wouldn't start reviewing applications until early February.

Some of the more significant aspects of my application were:

GRE Physics - 810
GRE Quantitative - 770
GRE Verbal - 540
GPA is 3.85 in physics and 3.82 overall at Georgia Institute of Technolgy (physics major)
President's Scholar at Georgia Tech
2007 American Association of Physicists in Medicine Fellowship Recipient
Research in dual-species Bose-Einstein condensation supervised by a former postdoctoral research fellow to Nobel laureate Wolfgang Ketterle
Research at Los Alamos National Lab pertaining to secondary induced malignancies from proton beam radiotherapy treatments
Recommendations from a medical physicist at MD Anderson Cancer Center, a coauthor with a Nobel Prize winner, and the undergraduate chair of physics at my school

I think the most significant aspect of my application was the medical physics fellowship I received last year. The woman I worked for said the biggest problem these programs have with potential students is their lack of experience in medical physics. I think my recommendations and my research experience, which was directly related to medical physics, were also critical.

Do either of you know which medical physics program is considered the best? I know Wisconsin has the longest standing accreditation of any program.

I also received that email telling me I was accepted to UWM. I also applied to Chicago but I have not heard from them yet.

Both Wisconsin and Chicago have excellent programs. Chicago's undergraudate program, however, is not CAMPEP accredited. However, it's not so big of a deal because they have a CAMPEP residency program which you do after you're done with classes/qualifiers. Both are world class schools for Medical Physics. University of Chicago has their world renowned University of Chicago Hospitals right on campus for you to do your residency. They have the prestige factor going for them, but the entire campus is located in one of the most violent and poverty stricken parts of the city. UChicago is a great school but Hyde Park is a nightmare.

I think both are great schools. It is harder to get funding at UWM, though. If you get into UChicago your funding is guarunteed and you don't have to be an RA to acquire funding (though you might have to TA and grade). At UWM Med-Phys there is no such thing as a TA.

So to summarize, I don't know what program is considered "the best." All the programs out there have good points and bad points. The worst things about going into medical physics over physics is the lack of CAMPEP accredited programs and the lack of available funding for graduate students. I considered applying to Purdue also, but they suffer from the funding problem and they are not CAMPEP certified (although someone in their department told me they are putting together an application which they will submit next year. From that point it usually takes 6 months to review and accredit the institution).

Congratulations on your acceptance. Your research experience is phenomenal and your other stats are impressive as well. Maybe I'll see in you in Wisconsin or Chicago this fall.